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Outside the Deep South, Bernie Sanders has earned more delegates than Hillary Clinton

MANASSAS, VA – SEPTEMBER 14: Thousands of people gather to hear Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during a campaign rally at the Prince William County Fairground September 14, 2015 in Manassas, Virginia. Sanders addressed 12,000 students at Christian Liberty University earlier in the day. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Bernie Sanders supporters are deluged, daily, with media naysayers and gloom-and-doomers about his campaign, pow-wows about how little chance he is at winning the nomination, about his lack of celebrity endorsements and all the rest. That’s why I was particularly pleased to stumble on an article, written by Jean Hay Bright over at OpEdNews, that splices and dices the political landscape, and lays out the positive numbers for Bernie that the mainstream media always just forgets to mention. No “buts,” no “inevitable candidate,” and not a mention of Clinton’s “celebrity” endorsements. Writes Bright:

The trend the Clinton camp is worried about is this: Outside the Deep South, what voters in the Blue and Purple states are telling us so far is that they want Bernie Sanders on that November Ballot . . . that outside the Deep South, Bernie Sanders has earned 45 more delegates than Hillary Clinton.

Because the rules for awarding of delegates is sometimes convoluted, a more accurate picture can be seen in the actual vote totals.

Overall, Hillary Clinton proclaims that she is out-voting Bernie Sanders by more than a million and a half votes nationally. And that’s true. The actual vote differential, nationally, is 1,639,320 votes in Hillary’s favor. However, the picture changes when you realize that the vote differential in the Deep South states is 1,697,216. Look at those two numbers. In other words, ALL of vote differential that Clinton proclaims over Sanders can be found in the Deep South states . . .

. . . In those Blue/Purple states, Bernie Sanders is actually leading Hillary Clinton in raw vote numbers. Of the 4,314,700 votes cast outside the Deep South so far, Hillary Clinton won 2,217,108, while Bernie Sanders won 2,275,004. So, nationally, Bernie Sanders has won 57,896 more actual votes than Hillary Clinton, outside the Deep South. Bottom line, outside the Deep South, Bernie Sanders is beating Hillary Clinton in both pledged (earned) delegates, and in actual votes cast . . . One other thing that has the Clinton camp worried. That is the proclaimed devotion of the Sanders supporters, as well as their often-blogged distaste for Clinton. Conventional wisdom is that Democrats will rally around the eventual nominee, regardless of how contentious the primaries might have been. Bernie’s supporters will of course vote for Hillary if it is the choice between her and Trump or Cruz. That, frankly, is not a safe assumption this year. And that is because of the very nature of Sanders supporters. His strengths are with the young, the independent thinkers, and the folks, young and old, who like Sanders’ vision of a better, more caring and democratic America. None of these voters hold any allegiance to the Democratic Party. In fact, so many of them have joined the party solely to vote for Bernie Sanders and his vision.

The blogs are filled with Sanders supporters who are stating flatly that they will not vote for Clinton, regardless of her opponent. They see her as Republican-lite and are debating whether to skip the presidential line on the ballot, skip the election entirely, fill in Bernie’s name as a write-in (which will not be counted in most states), or look for an alternative . . .

You can read the entire article here – and it’s well worth the read. Thanks to Ms. Bright for, well, brightening our day.